HOWTO: Replace gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver

Note: I have another guide for adjusting screensaver settings in Dapper without replacing gnome-screensaver. I prefer the method described in that guide to this one, but your mileage may vary. Both have their pros and cons so make sure you check out both before applying the instructions.

Problem: Dapper ships with gnome-screensaver instead of xscreensaver, which gives the user no option to set individual screensaver settings.

Ubuntu has a tendency to stick with the GNOME suite of applications unless absolutely necessary, and the GNOME developers do have reasons for doing what they're doing, so gnome-screensaver does have its longer term use, but in immediate practical terms we need a way of configuring screensaver options; otherwise most of them are either unusable or have crippled functionality. The following isn't a very elegant modification, but one that works nevertheless. Refer to the "Drawbacks" part at the bottom for possible dysfunctions after applying this.

Solution: Get xscreensaver back, disable gnome-screensaver.

1. To configure gnome-screensaver not to function, go to System / Preferences / Screensaver and uncheck both checkboxes.

7. Click System / Preferences / Screensaver to launch the xscreensaver configuration window, go to the "Advanced" tab and uncheck the "Power Management Enabled" checkbox. This should stop xscreensaver's power saving features from conflicting with Gnome Power Manager.

8.Optional: Create a launcher to lock the screen manually. Right click your desktop, choose "Create Launcher", and enter the following as the command: "xscreensaver-command -lock".

Drawbacks:

- System / Quit / Lock Screen doesn't function after applying this, since it locks the screen via gnome-screensaver. I'm looking for a fix to this; in the meantime you can use the launcher you created in step 8 as a workaround. (Update: See this post for a suggested fix. I haven't tried it yet)

- In my experience the screen won't get locked when closing the laptop lid but this may be due to my (mis)configuration; I'll report back on this after experimenting a bit.

- You get the standard xscreensaver unlock dialog when unlocking the screen instead of the Dapper one, which detracts from the overall polish a bit, if you mind such things.

Re: HOWTO: Replace gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver

yes, that's work, but i prefer to use alacarte to add a new menu entry for xscreensaver-demo, this way keep everything to restore easily gnome screensaver, and btw why edit manually conf file when the graphical way works